Ion Botnaru, Director of the General Assembly and Economic and Social Council Affairs Division, announced during a Headquarters news conference this afternoon the names of the nine countries vying for the soon-to-be-vacant five non-permanent seats on the Security Council. He also announced the names of candidates for upcoming elections to fill seats on the Economic and Social Council and the International Court of Justice.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
There was no universal standard for the definition of long-term and other abusive forms of solitary confinement, but there was no doubt that it should be banned as torture, three human rights experts said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.
Announcing the launch of a book project that aimed to help establish libraries in refugee camps, a human rights activist and a United Nations refugee agency official said this afternoon that literature and education were critical for giving hope to children in dire straits.
The new head of United Nations peacekeeping said this afternoon that partnership — between the Security Council, troop-contributing countries, host Governments and other stakeholders — would be his guiding principle in meeting the complex challenges of peace and security in the twenty-first century. “I have no preordained plan,” Herve Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told correspondents in his first press conference since taking up his duties 10 days ago.
Despite the prevailing global financial woes, the financial situation of the United Nations had undergone an overall improvement in 2011, with all its funds enjoying positive cash balances and a drop in the debt it owed to Member States expected by year’s end, the world body’s top management official said at Headquarters today.
Much progress had been made in establishing normative and legal frameworks required to fight discrimination and violence against women, but implementation of those frameworks, as well as necessary social transformation, lagged far behind, United Nations experts told correspondents at Headquarters this afternoon.
In the 10 years since its creation, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) had helped countries improve their agriculture, infrastructure and health sectors, and future priorities now centred on working with regional economic communities to further increase the continent’s engagement with the international community, top United Nations and regional officials said today at a Headquarters press briefing.
The work of Nobel Peace Prize recipients, Liberian President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf and peace activists Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman, embodied exactly what Alfred Nobel had in mind for the Prize, a senior United Nations rights advocate said today at a Headquarters press conference.
At his last Headquarters press conference before the end of a three-year term as United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Michael Williams said today that his departure came at a time of profound change and tumult in the Middle East and that his ardent wish was for democracy to flourish as real peace took hold in the region.
Pro-life Government, academic, legal and civil society representatives presented at Headquarters today a new declaration intended to help Governments guarantee the rights of unborn children and reject pressure to adopt laws that would legalize or de-criminalize abortion.